some pics from cdf

Sofar I have read reports about tests in US and here in the neighbourhood… Aircrafts have fixed role in a training. Most of the time those that are for a2g stay in that role. They do not just forget that and accept A2A. They are either heavy loaded and need the fuel to go to the target, or they returned from the target and need to go back to the base asap. They wil not move into wvr like topgun a2a pilots love to do. So those Jaguars will (most) of the time do their a2g work.

With co-operation with western partners they probably optimized the body. So structural improvements. And there is a lot of difference between the quality of the avionics of the MKI or the standard Russian version…

Jaguar and Tanker crew are top guns? The quality of this release is not high. They are bombers. Not air superiority fighters.

About the cranked delta. I don’t think it is unique. There are more ways to achieve vortices and all have the same result.

Harry,
The IAF is a huge airforce with respectable crew and planes. Do not think we make jokes about that. The reaction about losing mig21 was about India adapting high tech very fast. I think they have problems like any other airforce. Some major problems like the frequent crashes of the mig21 could have been solved faster. We can blaim the Russian. But that will not bring those pilots back. It took ages and still it is not a done deal. So with getting one of the simplest aircraft in the air is difficult enough. If they adapt very complex planes then it will not nake it much easier. Operating larger numbers, flying more hours etc. etc. OK. But there are many crashes. That is the fact. Or are you just gonna wave away that fact?

About those f16’s… That was the result of boycot. I doubt that it was something like bad spare parts, bad maintenance or bad fuel… They had a few mishaps but if you look at the result of many years of boycot and no support then it was pretty good job. Indian airforce had not one problem at the same time.

>>>”Low quality of fuel” is what the Russians claim among a bunch of other unsubstantiated reasons for MiG-21 crashes. It’s all a big blame game. FOD *was* an issue – the MiG-29’s anti-FOD doors never worked as advertised but they were quickly fixed, *locally*, and the MiG-29 is one of the IAF’s most serviceable aircraft today. Su-30s never had that problem and their anti-FOD grill was fine, however, when you have intakes placed that close to the ground, there is more vulnerability to FOD. Both aircraft today, along with most others, contribute to the giant sortie rate and flying hrs.

Whether is is bad fuel or bad spare parts or bad flying due to bad training. The crashes were very high for a long period. There are many mig21 still in service all over the world. Why are Indian Migs crashing the most? I think it should have been addressed much earlier. About FOD… I don’t think that Indian environment is much worser then the F16 just a few hundred kilometers away. There are many planes with lowered intake. Taking care of FOD is a major issue for any airforce. One does not pay attention to it cause there are special doors…

Compared to India China has only contributer to its road to Chinese aviation industry: Russia. They have been extremely busy in buying and TOT. We will never know which part of these newer product are exactly Chinese parts but we can see that they are full speed in making (SU27) getting (MKK, J10 Engine, FC1 engine, several avionics and weapons) and improving (J11, Kunlun). India has several sources and the western world is less reluctant to provide. The same Arrow that was stopped going to China is openly okayed to India. Whether India is better or worse is indeed a very difficult question.

About Pakistan. Yep they do buy the airframes. They did not like the avionics but that is getting better. India does the same with MKI. And we can not blaim them that it is a bad choice can we? Merci.

The fact that FC1 is designed by Pakistan. That is a bit overkill. But the Pakistani input has been a very important factor for Chinese (export) products. The Pakistani have been playing around and can provide other perspectives. The FC1 is kind of F16. PAF f16 pilots are handy to optimize the Fc1. If you look very good then you will see that the first batch of the Pakistani FC1 testpilots are Sargodha F16 pilots. I can provide not more details at the moment about it.

Cheers.